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The concept car of hockey equipment

In 2011, the people running Bauer Performance Sports’ hockey division issued a challenge to the research and development department in St. Jerome, Que.:

If cost and materials weren’t limiting factors, what is the best NHL-ready equipment you could create?

Two years and $1 million later, Bauer is unveiling OD1N (pronounced “Odin”), a customized set of ultra-light skates, protective body armour and goalie pads that the company claims will help six selected NHLers move faster than ever.

According to Bauer, OD1N goalie pads are light and flexible enough to allow goalie Henrik Lundqvist to move from the goal post to the edge of the crease an inch faster than he would in normal pads. And the body armour is four pounds lighter than standard gear, a difference that enables a skater to go from blueline to blueline a foot faster than he would in normal equipment.

Is $1 million a lot of cash to pour into such small gains in speed, especially when the gear isn’t commercially available?

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Hardly, Bauer officials say. Not when an inch makes the difference between making a save and giving up a goal — and Bauer officials stress that a one foot in skating speed is a massive advantage at the NHL level. Not when the company spends $16 million annually on research and development. And not when the technology currently in use by a hand-picked group of NHL players will eventually filter into the commercial market.

“This is an investment in the future of the business,” says Bauer Performance Sports chief financial officer Amir Rosenthal. “This is the way we build a platform that can extend to consumers. The payoff has been demonstrated over many years. This is a long-term play.”

While more than 70 per cent of NHL players use at least one piece of Bauer equipment, the company says it focussed on Olympic-bound players when deciding who to outfit in the new gear. Canadians Jonathan Toews and Claude Giroux will wear it in Sochi, as will Russian Alexander Ovechkin, American Patrick Kane and Swedes Henrik Lundqvist and Nic Backstrom.

Bauer says the new gear is to hockey equipment what concept cars are to the auto industry.

In Bauer’s case, the body armour was developed using a 3D optical scanner, which allows technicians to build pads to fit the contours of an athlete’s body. While that technology is a few years from becoming available to recreational players, eventually the market will demand it.

“The world is becoming more and more personalized,” says Craig Desjardins, Bauer Hockey’s general manager of player equipment. “It’s inevitable that this fusion between player and technology is coming.”

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Bauer says the value in its new equipment is the weight — or lack thereof.

The skates most NHL players use weigh about 800 grams each. Last year, rival equipment maker Eaton released a skate it claimed was the fastest on the market, but Bauer says the OD1N skate is faster still, and weighs just 550 grams.

But while the Easton skate retails for roughly $900, Desjardins can’t estimate what an OD1N skate would cost in a store because it wasn’t developed with the retail market in mind.

“We can say right now, tongue in cheek, that it’s priceless,” Desjardins says. “Each of them has been customized for the six (selected) players.”

Bauer officials say, however, that within four years, a skate identical to the OD1N might be available on store shelves.

Meanwhile, the company is testing prototypes of an even lighter, faster skate.

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